Making It Up As I Go Along
by Samantha Gianulis
Sky Island and the promise of regeneration
There is a magical forest just outside of San Diego, California. It’s called Sky Island, and I promise, it really exists. I went to sixth-grade camp there, at Camp Palomar atop Palomar Mountain. I didn’t know then what I was seeing (I was in sixth grade, come on), but I have a fresh perspective on it now.
Here in Southern California, we just experienced our second regional inferno in four years. Wildfires on this grand of a scale are tragic in terms of losses, emotionally draining, and quite dramatic. When the radio stations were not broadcasting dead air, a deep voice would resonate from my car speakers – just like a preview in a movie theater – and say “Continuing Coverage of Firestorm 2007.” But that sort of embellishment compels people to help each other. That level of devastation gives birth to new life, while the flames are still growing until long after the ash settles.
Palomar Mountain, the 6,000 foot high mountain watching over San Diego County all the way to the sea is referred to as Sky Island because it stands alone, no hills or valleys connect it to another mountain range. Sky Island also cradles habitat that, according to curators of our Natural History Museum, are “specific to that forest.” To me, that means there are plants and animals found at Sky Island that cannot be found anywhere else. How did that happen and why is it so symbolic to me?
I think there have been fires there before. I think cultures and the life that sustains them survived and evolved. I think species adapted, and with that adaptation, distinguished themselves into something very special. If they did, so can I. I’ll do it everyday until my fire goes out. The ashes I leave behind will be part of a legacy, one child, one grand-baby at a time. Our stories, our lives regenerating, because just like the Fir tree that grows again, it’s what we are programmed to do.
Ash. Something burns and leaves debris. Within that debris are ecological nutrients and genetic codes. Within clouds of smoke there is seed dispersal and family re-groupings. Fires, I have come to see, help the environment. The old landscape burns and gets the soil ready to begin again. Isn’t that something? It’s the irony, and the beauty, I choose to take away from these constant blazes that I can sniff miles away, at first spark, being a Californian as long as I have. There is a cycle in nature as there is in everything. You cry for what is lost. You curse the conscience-less nature of fire. Then re-building occurs, harmony is restored, and if you are lucky, you see the circle of life that looped around other living creatures since before time began.
We are little, itty bitty dots in that equation, but we still have an impact (like the people who start fires, like the people who put them out). When my family and I bought diapers and kid’s toothpaste among other things and donated those non-perishables, we made an impact. Fire burns within people, too, and at best, it refines the soil of our hearts.
Besides the flames, what am I really afraid of? Painful loss? Leaving no memorable trace behind? Just by being here, though, I have left traces, like everyone else. Some cut deeper into the soil than others but everyone stands on the mountain for their own reasons. My place right now is to admire the life existing around me. My place right now is to not dread the next fire, because as I learn from Sky Island, life goes on.
Sky Island holds the promise of regeneration. I am so happy I’m within range of it.
Fire Seen as Beneficial for the Mountain's Ecology
 Samantha Gianulis, Editor-in-Chief, writes from Southern California where she lives with her husband and their three children. She writes columns for Family Food Network (www.familyfoodnetwork.com) and Today’s Family Magazine (www.todays-family.net). Her first book, Little Grapes on theVine…Mommy’s Musings on Food & Family, released April 2007. She is a co-author of A Book is Born (Wyatt Mackenzie Publishing, Fall 2007). Log on to her Web site at www.samanthagianulis.com and her blog, Vine Chat, http://samanthagianulis.blog.com.
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